Preferences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environments among high school students in Taiwan

This paper explored students' preferences toward the constructivist Internet-based learning environments. A Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment Survey (CILES) was developed. The CILES consisted of six scales, including student negotiation, inquiry learning, reflective thinking, relevance, ease of use and challenge. Questionnaire responses gathered from more than 700 high school students in Taiwan suggested that the survey showed adequate reliability in assessing students' preferences. Students showed stronger preferences for the learning environments, which were easy to use or navigate and integrate complex real-life problems with relevant knowledge in a meaningful way. In addition, males and females shared similar preferences toward the Internet-based learning environments. Students having moderate Internet experiences seemed to be more critical to the preferences of the Internet-based learning environments, in which they may have demanded authentic and facilitated Internet-based learning environments, while their inquiry and reflective thinking should be promoted.     

Cognitive–metacognitive and content-technical aspects of constructivist Internet-based learning environments: a LISREL analysis

Through a LISREL analysis, this study validated the Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment Survey (CILES). CILES consisted of six scales, sorted by two aspects. The first aspect, the cognitive–metacognitive aspect, included the scales of student negotiation, inquiry learning, and reflective thinking, whereas the second aspect, the content-technical aspect, involved the scales of Relevance, Ease of Use, and Challenge. A LISREL structural model was also proposed to examine the relationships between students' responses across these two aspects. Survey responses gathered from 483 high school students in Taiwan were the research data for this study. The results from the LISREL confirmatory analysis showed that CILES had highly satisfactory validity and reliability to assess students' preferences for constructivist Internet-based learning environments. Moreover, the structural model indicated that the Internet learning environments that challenged students' existing concepts could facilitate their preferences for student negotiation, inquiry learning and reflective thinking activities. It is proposed that the Internet can have rich connections with numerous resources and a variety of perspectives, thus constructing appropriate learning environments to provide different kinds of challenges for learners.     

The preferences toward constructivist Internet-based learning environments among university students in Taiwan

Numerous educators have proposed the development of constructivist Internet-based learning environments for students. When creating the constructivist Internet-based learning environments, it is important for researchers to be aware of students’ preferences toward these environments. Through gathering data from 659 university students in Taiwan, this study developed a questionnaire to assess students’ preferences toward constructivist Internet-based learning environments. The questionnaire, with adequate validity and reliability, included 34 items on the following seven scales: relevance, multiple sources (and interpretations), challenge, student negotiation, cognitive apprenticeship, reflective thinking and epistemological awareness. The questionnaire responses revealed that male students tended to prefer the Internet-based learning environments where they could solve challenging problems, acquire cognitive apprenticeship and guidance from experts, and promote epistemological development than did female students. The findings also suggested that, if educators intend to develop Internet-based learning environments for more academically advanced students, such as graduate students, care should be taken to create more opportunities for them to negotiate ideas, obtain proper guidance, reflect their own thoughts, and explore epistemological issues. Finally, students with more Internet experiences tended to demand more on many features of the constructivist Internet-based learning environments than those with less Internet experiences.     

Self-directed learning readiness, Internet self-efficacy and preferences towards constructivist Internet-based learning environments among higher-aged adults

This article examines several research questions to establish a theory model for explaining factors that influence adult learners' preferences for constructivist Internet-based learning environments (CILE). Data were gathered from 541 individual participants enrolled in adult education institutes in Taiwan for structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses. The research results established a 10-scale instrument for assessing adult learners' preferences for CILE. Among the scales of CILE, adult students placed the highest value on relevance to life and reflective thinking, and scored the lowest for critical judgement, ease of use and student negotiation. The SEM analyses revealed that compared to Internet self-efficacy (ISE), self-directed learning readiness plays a major role in predicting adults' preferences for their learning environment, especially for the higher level of intellectual challenge. ISE plays a mediating role in the relationships between Internet usage and the participants' preferences. This result suggests that more time spent on Internet practice may increase adult learners' ISE, which may strengthen their preferences for Internet-based learning environments.     

A context-aware video prompt approach to improving students' in-field reflection levels

Engaging students in reflection during real-world observation and inquiry activities has been recognized as an important issue for improving students' learning achievement and motivation. Many studies in the literature have adopted text-based reflection prompts as an important strategy to promote learning performance, this study argues that using videos as a reflection prompt would be more effective for improving learners' ubiquitous learning experiences and can provide a more sensible scenario that is better fitting the real-world contexts than the text-based prompts. In this study, a context-aware video-based prompt approach is proposed for improving students' reflection levels and satisfaction by providing timely and personalized guidance using mobile, wireless communication and sensing technologies. An experiment was conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed video-based prompt strategy with 70 participants in two groups. The results show that learners' reflection levels were significantly improved with the use of the proposed approach and that positive attitudes were observed toward the use of video-based prompts in the context-aware ubiquitous learning environment.     

Supervised machine learning in multimodal learning analytics for estimating success in project‐based learning

Multimodal learning analytics provides researchers new tools and techniques to capture different types of data from complex learning activities in dynamic learning environments. This paper investigates the use of diverse sensors, including computer vision, user‐generated content, and data from the learning objects (physical computing components), to record high‐fidelity synchronised multimodal recordings of small groups of learners interacting. We processed and extracted different aspects of the students' interactions to answer the following question: Which features of student group work are good predictors of team success in open‐ended tasks with physical computing? To answer this question, we have explored different supervised machine learning approaches (traditional and deep learning techniques) to analyse the data coming from multiple sources. The results illustrate that state‐of‐the‐art computational techniques can be used to generate insights into the "black box" of learning in students' project‐based activities. The features identified from the analysis show that distance between learners' hands and faces is a strong predictor of students' artefact quality, which can indicate the value of student collaboration. Our research shows that new and promising approaches such as neural networks, and more traditional regression approaches can both be used to classify multimodal learning analytics data, and both have advantages and disadvantages depending on the research questions and contexts being investigated. The work presented here is a significant contribution towards developing techniques to automatically identify the key aspects of students success in project‐based learning environments, and to ultimately help teachers provide appropriate and timely support to students in these fundamental aspects.     

From deconstructive misalignment to constructive alignment: Exploring student uses of mobile technologies in university classrooms

Becoming increasingly ubiquitous for students are the various uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) within their wireless and networked learning environments. Many students use ICTs during lectures or tutorials for tasks unrelated to class learning activities, thus providing a potential misalignment with the intended learning outcomes. A sample of undergraduate and postgraduate psychology and business students were surveyed to determine their frequency of mobile ICT use in the classroom and the students' motivations and rationale for undertaking those activities unrelated to classroom learning. The survey contained quantitative items (categorical and Likert scale response items) and qualitative items requiring responses to open ended questions. Students indicated that using ICTs in ways misaligned with lesson learning outcomes, was related to the course content delivery mode, the promotion of passive or active learning, being domestic or international students, learner maturity, and the need for supporting course information. Understanding how and why students use mobile ICTs in classes can inform the redesign of classroom activities, to actively involve those technologies to assist in constructive alignment with the learning outcomes and enhance the student learning experience.     

Practices with technology: learning at the boundary between study and work

A study of part‐time student experience of university courses delivered using a range of technologies found that information and communication technology enabled students to move between study and work experience to the benefit of their learning in both contexts. Technology‐based study activities enabled students to participate in learning both as a student and as a member of a practice or work context. Given the increasingly pressured lives of all students in higher education and their aspirations for employment after graduation, this suggests that we would benefit from taking their relationship to work and professional practice into account more directly, in deciding how to integrate technology into their study experience. Teacher conceptions of technology as a tool primarily for information delivery and discussion need to expand to recognize that it can be used to construct learning experiences situated in roles, skills and interactive environments that enhance students' ability to make transitions across the boundaries between contexts of study and work.     

Enhancing middle school students' scientific learning and motivation through agent‐based learning

Facing students' decreasing motivation to pursue scientific study, schools and educators need to coordinate new technologies with pedagogical agents to effectively sustain or promote students' scientific learning and motivation to learn. Although the provision of pedagogical agents in student learning has been studied previously, it is not clear what benefits the strategy might offer with regard to student motivation. This study proposes an agent‐based mechanism that integrates problem‐solving and inquiry‐based instructions to help students better understand complex scientific concepts and to sustain their motivation to learn science. In this study, a quasi‐experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance and feasibility of our proposed mechanism. The results revealed that the agent‐based mechanism was effective and feasible for enhancing students' learning and motivation to learn. The mechanism was associated with increases in the acquisition of knowledge when compared with the control group. Its effect in promoting and sustaining students' motivation was also statistically significant. Detailed discussions of the findings are provided in this study.     

A contextual game-based learning approach to improving students' inquiry-based learning performance in social studies courses

Inquiry-based learning, an effective instructional strategy, can be in the form of a problem or task for triggering student engagement. However, how to situate students in meaningful inquiry activities remains to be settled, especially for social studies courses. In this study, a contextual educational computer game is developed to improve students' learning performance based on an inquiry-based learning strategy. An experiment has been conducted on an elementary school social studies course to evaluate the effects of the proposed approach on the inquiry-based learning performances of students with different learning styles. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach effectively enhanced the students' learning effects in terms of their learning achievement, learning motivation, satisfaction degree and flow state. Furthermore, it is also found that the proposed approach benefited the “active” learning style students more than the “reflective” style students in terms of learning achievement. This suggests the need to provide additional supports to students with particular learning styles in the future.     

Students' online interactive patterns in augmented reality-based inquiry activities

Inquiry learning has been developing for years and many countries have incorporated inquiry learning into the scope of K-12 education. Educators have indicated the importance of engaging students in knowledge-sharing activities during the inquiry learning process. In this study, a location-based augmented reality (AR) environment with a five-step guiding mechanism is developed to guide students to share knowledge in inquiry learning activities. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of promoting the knowledge sharing behaviors of students, an experiment has been conducted in an elementary school natural science course. The participants were 57 fourth-grade students from an elementary school in Northern Taiwan, divided into an experimental group of 28 students who learned with the AR-based approach and a control group of 29 students who learned with the conventional in-class mobile learning approach. The students' learning behaviors, including their movements in the real-world environment and interactions with peers, were recorded. Accordingly, the learning patterns and interactions of the two groups were analyzed via lag-sequential analysis and quantitative content analysis. It was found that, in comparison with the conventional inquiry-based mobile learning activity, the AR-based inquiry learning activity is able to engage the students in more interactions for knowledge construction. The findings of this study provide guidance for helping teachers develop effective strategies and learning designs for conducting inquiry-based learning activities.     

Use of blogs in pre-service teacher education to improve student engagement

Web 2.0 technologies allow average computer users to be able to publish on the Internet without having to know complex computer technical knowledge, which gives these technologies powerful potential to facilitate student engagement in various learning environments. However, a knowledge gap exists in the literature related to factors affecting student engagement with Web 2.0 technologies. The purpose of this study is to understand factors affecting student engagement in a pre-service teacher education program that uses blogs to expand in-class discussions about technology integration. First year pre-service teachers in a mathematics education department participated in the study. Data were collected with a survey that was developed to measure student engagement with blog use. Results show that student motivation, reasons to use blog in the course, and level of challenge perceived by the students affect students' engagement with blog use. Gender and technical ability of students do not impact students' engagement. As a result, blogs can be utilized to expand in-class discussions equally well for all students.     

“Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” for seamless science inquiry in a primary school

This paper reports a one-year study on the project of “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) for seamless science inquiry” in a primary school in Hong Kong. BYOD in this study refers to “the technology model where students bring a personally owned mobile device with various apps and embedded features to use anywhere, anytime for the purpose of learning”. The study aims at investigating (a) what advancement of content knowledge students made in their science inquiry in a seamless learning environment supported by their own mobile device; (b) how the students advanced their content knowledge in science inquiry; and (c) what students' perception is regarding their learning experience supported by their own mobile devices. The topic of inquiry was “The Anatomy of Fish”. Data collection included pre- and post-domain tests, self-reported questionnaire, student artifacts, class observations and field notes. Content analysis and a student artifact tracing approach were adopted in the data analysis to examine and trace students' knowledge advancement. The research findings show that the students advanced their understanding of the anatomy of fish well beyond what was available in the textbook and they developed positive attitude toward seamless science inquiry supported by their own mobile devices.     

It is about timing: Network prestige in asynchronous online discussions

Asynchronous online discussions are broadly used to support social learning. This paper reports on an undergraduate class's online discussion activities over one semester. Applying social network analysis, this study revealed a participation gap among students reflected by their varied levels of network prestige. The low‐prestige group initiated equivalent volumes of interactions but were less reciprocated. In‐depth analysis found the high‐prestige group also advantageous in other network measures such as closeness centrality and eigenvector centrality, as well as the strength, persistence, and reciprocity of their ties. To probe potential explanations of the revealed gap, we further contrasted post content and posting behaviours between two groups. Results did not identify any significant differences in post content but found low‐prestige students' participation less timely and more temporally compressed. This paper calls for attention to the participation gap in online discussions, microlevel temporal patterns of student activities, and practical means to scaffold student participation in asynchronous online discussions.     

Factors influencing students' beliefs about the future in the context of tablet-based interactive classrooms

With the distribution of easy-to-use tablet computers, tablet-based interactive classrooms have become popular environments for innovative learning activities in recent years. However, little research has investigated the relationship between technologically enhanced learning environments and students' beliefs about the future and self-efficacy for learning. In this study, young students' perceptions of tablet-based interactive classrooms, beliefs about the future, and self-efficacy for learning in rural areas of Korea were examined after the students engaged in tablet-based interactive classrooms. To develop the theoretical framework, we created a structural research model of ease of use, usefulness, satisfaction, deepened experiences through tablet use, beliefs about the future, and self-efficacy in tablet-based interactive classrooms based on a partial least squares (PLS) method. The results indicate that (1) students in tablet-based interactive classrooms perceive frequent experiences with tablet-based instructions as easy and useful and (2) student satisfaction is significantly influenced by their perceptions of deeper learning experiences through tablet use, which are significantly influenced by their future expectations and self-efficacy for learning. This study provides relevant implications for educators who design learning activities for students in rural schools in tablet-based interactive classroom environments.     

When educational agents meet surrogate competition: Impacts of competitive educational agents on students' motivation and performance

The design of educational agents increasingly attracts researchers' attention recently. One of major reasons is that educational agents could enhance student learning in various aspects. Although research in this area has mushroomed, such research mainly emphasizes on students in higher education. It is still unclear how educational agents influence young student learning. In addition, competition is a significant element, but fewer studies take competition into account while designing educational agents. Although some studies have indicated that educational agents in competitive environments has positive effects on students' perception and attribution, its impacts on students' motivation and performance are unclear. Thus, the study develops an integrative agent that combines educational and competitive elements for young students, and further examines its influences, in terms of motivation and learning performance. The results revealed that such competitive educational agents could enhance students' motivation and learning performance.     

An investigation of mobile learning readiness in higher education based on the theory of planned behavior

This study investigated the current state of college students' perceptions toward mobile learning in higher education. Mobile learning is a new form of learning utilizing the unique capabilities of mobile devices. Although mobile devices are ubiquitous on college campuses, student readiness for mobile learning has yet to be fully explored in the United States. The paper describes a conceptual model, based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), which explains how college students' beliefs influence their intention to adopt mobile devices in their coursework. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze self-report data from 177 college students. The findings showed that the TPB explained college students' acceptance of m-learning reasonably well. More specifically, attitude, subjective norm, and behavioral control positively influenced their intention to adopt mobile learning. The results provide valuable implications for ways to increase college students' acceptance of mobile learning.     

Investigating chemistry students’ learning about the relationship between the temperature and the pressure of a gas using a microcomputer‐based laboratory (MBL): A word of caution

Abstract

Learning chemistry with understanding is a challenge. From a social constructivist position, we view students’ chemistry learning from experiments as involving the shared negotiation of meaning that uses experimental data to confirm or challenge their existing scientific theories. This study focuses on the practices related to the use of a microcomputer‐based laboratory (MBL) in a high school chemistry course in which students were studying gases and kinetic theory. Given the widely accepted view that the use of such technology is a ‘cure‐all’ for educational problems, student learning using this technology might be considered disappointing. We find that little or no higher‐order thinking was employed as students engaged in using the MBL and that some alternative conceptions were still evident. It is necessary to consider the students’ and the teacher's use of such technology in the experimental context if the promise of its use is to be realized.     

Context‐aware language‐learning application in the green technology building: Which group can benefit the most?

To assess the effects and learner perceptions of context‐aware ubiquitous language learning (CAULL), a green‐building English‐learning application (GBELA) employing sensing technology was created to develop participants' English listening and reading skills using smartphones and QR codes. This study investigated the effects of 40 participants' perceived ease of use, usability, usefulness, learner attitude, satisfaction with the use of GBELA, and self‐efficacy in smartphone and GBELA usage. Quantitative and qualitative data through pretest/post‐test, questionnaires, and semistructured interviews were collected with a focus on green building–based English (GBbE) reading and listening skills. Results proved the effectiveness of the GBELA for both high‐achievement (HA) and low‐achievement (LA) groups. Furthermore, correlations were found between the HA group and ease of use of the GBELA. The correlations among learner perceptions and self‐efficacy showed that a well‐designed context‐aware learning system can help learners enhance self‐efficacy in CAULL mode. Implications for the design of effective context‐ and knowledge‐specific ubiquitous learning systems are provided in the study.